Verdence Capital Advisors LLC Purchases 35,000 Shares of Ponce Financial Group, Inc. $PDLB

Verdence Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Ponce Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:PDLB) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 35,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $698,000.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Empirical Finance LLC increased its stake in shares of Ponce Financial Group by 19.4% during the first quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 247,389 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,134,000 after purchasing an additional 40,176 shares in the last quarter. M3F Inc. grew its stake in shares of Ponce Financial Group by 8.0% in the 1st quarter. M3F Inc. now owns 2,003,960 shares of the company’s stock worth $33,486,000 after buying an additional 147,979 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in Ponce Financial Group by 2.8% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 939,100 shares of the company’s stock valued at $15,692,000 after buying an additional 25,634 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE increased its position in Ponce Financial Group by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 504,558 shares of the company’s stock valued at $8,431,000 after buying an additional 1,658 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sei Investments Co. raised its stake in Ponce Financial Group by 2.2% during the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 50,457 shares of the company’s stock valued at $843,000 after buying an additional 1,067 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 64.35% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

PDLB has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Zacks Research cut Ponce Financial Group from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 20th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Ponce Financial Group from a “buy (a-)” rating to a “buy (a)” rating in a research note on Friday, October 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $24.00.

Ponce Financial Group Stock Up 1.2%

PDLB stock opened at $22.68 on Friday. Ponce Financial Group, Inc. has a 1-year low of $13.91 and a 1-year high of $22.75. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $20.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $18.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $548.58 million, a P/E ratio of 12.00 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.85, a current ratio of 1.34 and a quick ratio of 1.34.

Ponce Financial Group (NASDAQ:PDLB) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, October 26th. The company reported $0.76 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by $0.24. Ponce Financial Group had a net margin of 21.21% and a return on equity of 13.94%. The firm had revenue of $34.84 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $31.80 million. Equities analysts forecast that Ponce Financial Group, Inc. will post 10.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Ponce Financial Group

Ponce Financial Group, Inc is the holding company for Ponce Bank, a community-focused savings bank headquartered in the Bronx, New York. Through its banking subsidiary, the company provides financial services to individuals, families, businesses and nonprofit organizations in the New York metropolitan area.

Ponce Bank’s primary offerings include deposit accounts, residential and commercial real estate lending, multifamily and construction loans, commercial and industrial financing, consumer loans and other traditional banking services.